Roger joined the rank and file of the militia, but afterwards, having blooded and fleet saddle-horses in his stables on Lake Ontario shore in Darlington, the commanding officers employed him as a despatch bearer. In turn in the militia and then as despatch bearer, when nothing seemed doing, his time was fully occupied at the business of war. He was then sixty-two years of age, but so pressed were the authorities for men, that age did not debar from service, but physical inability only.
Having accumulated wealth both in lands and specie, Roger’s first thought, on the breaking out of war, was for the safety of his specie. Mounting his best saddle-horse he rode some thirty miles west from his home in Darlington to Levi Annis’s, his brother-in-law, in Scarborough, in order that this relative might become his banker, for in those days there were no banks, and people had to hide their money. Entering his brother-in-law’s log-house, he removed a large pine knot from one of the logs forming the house wall. He placed his gold and silver within the cavity, and the knot was again inserted and all made smooth. Levi Annis gave no sign, and no one that came to the inn ever suspected the presence of this hoard of wealth. But when the war was over, Roger Conant again visited Levi Annis in Scarborough. Three years had passed away since, in his presence,
[Illustration: ROGER CONANT HIDING HIS TREASURE.]
the treasure had been inserted in the wall. In his presence also the pine knot was now removed, and the bullion--about $16,000 in value--was drawn forth intact.
Among the records that have come down to the author from Roger Conant, and along with fragmentary papers left by him, by Levi Annis, David Annis, and Moode Farewell, various scraps of songs of the time 1812 to 1815 are garnered. Perhaps the song of the greatest merit and widest celebrity was “The Noble Lads of Canada,” the beginning of which was:
“Oh, now the time has come, my boys, to cross the Yankee line, We remember they were rebels once, and conquered old Burgoyne; We’ll subdue those mighty democrats, and pull their dwellings down, And we’ll have the States inhabited with subjects of the Crown.”
It is just as well for the present generation to know this jingle, absurd as it may be. There were many verses in it, but all much to the same tenor, and while they pleased Canadians who sang the song, they were certainly harmless, and to-day we can afford to laugh at them. It is so very ridiculous to think of our handful of men going over to the United States and “pulling their dwellings down.” Our defence at home was quite another matter, but we are proud of it nevertheless. Human nature is much the same here as elsewhere, and was also in 1812-15. Thus would the author illustrate how he applies the inference; there were over a half of the inhabitants who came directly from the British Isles, or were descended from those who came. The greater part of the settlers were poor. Generally the U. E. Loyalists and their descendants were fairly well-to-do. If not well-to-do they were far better off than the others. Consequently some mean-spirited among the settlers from Britain or their descendants, who were so poor, would depreciate the U. E. Loyalists if possible. Roger Conant said that one envious neighbor set the Indians upon him, during a lull in the war, while he was at home, by telling them he was a Yankee, and that they might rob him if they chose. For the object of plunder, they came upon him because he had an abundance of stock, the best in the land, as well as goods of various sorts for Indian fur trading, while his money, as we have seen, was safely banked in a pine log in Scarborough. One night there came to his home in Darlington, in the year 1812, a single Indian who asked to rest before the open fire for the night. Permission was given, and he squatted before the blazing wood fire of logs. On watching him closely, a knife was seen to be up his sleeve of buckskin, but not a word was spoken of the discovery. Shortly another Indian came in and squatted beside the first on the floor, and in utter silence. Now came a third Indian, who, in his turn, crouched with the two former ones.